Design and Remodeling

I cook a lot. For instance, I still remember cooking through and photographing all the recipes in my cookbook, Bakeless Sweets. The amount of dishes generated by those 75 recipes was mountainous. So this clutter of dishes you see in the photo above expresses how my kitchen looks, most of the time. And yet I have an open kitchen, with the mess on display for everyone to see. (See my whole kitchen renovation reveal.) How do I hide all the dirty dishes?

We have a lot of thoughts on how to organize cookbook collections. (See: Some Thoughts On Organizing Your Cookbook Collection.) You can go by subject, author name, book size, or even color. How you choose to store and organize your cookbooks is all about personal preference, of course, but if you need some visual inspiration, where better to look than our Kitchen Tour archives? Here’s a quick peek at how 15 different cooks find ways to store their beloved cookbooks in the kitchen.

Breakfast bars, or separate “morning areas,” are coveted details in kitchens with room to spare. In smaller kitchens, hideaway features, like this tabletop, are incredibly useful. What about combining the two features and creating a hideaway breakfast area—in this case, a roll-out cabinet dedicated to your morning joe, complete with pot-filler faucet!

Whether you're a farmhouse traditionalist or looking for something with some modern flair, there's something on this list for everybody.

You know that awkward gap of wall surface left between the tops of most kitchen cabinets and the ceiling? It’s generally about twelve inches in depth and has long puzzled renters and homeowners alike when it comes to decorating, leading to such ideas as hanging rows of plates waaaaaay up high or squeezing in a few silk philodendrons (in the case of the ledge instead of the soffit).

Shine bright like a light bulb.